"Mechanistic and Neo-mechanistic Accounts of Causation: How Salmon Already Got (Much of) It Right"

In the last decade or so a number of mechanistic theories have been put forward. Without denying the progress made on the topic and the many distinctive merits of neo-mechanistic views, I argue that the mechanistic revival is much more indebted to Wesley Salmon than has been recognized, and claim that his works already offered important hints at what are now regarded as the crucial steps forward in dealing with mechanistic causation. More specifically, I argue that Salmon’s theory already pointed out – among other things – the crucial role in the analysis of mechanistic causation of such notions as production, interaction and transmission; the compatibility of mechanicism and functional claims; the distinction between constitutive and etiological aspects of causal explanation; and, most importantly with respect to the current debate, the usefulness of counterfactuals, interpreted experimentally, as reliable tools to distinguish genuine causal relations from non-causal ones.